Women unpopular among Tories?

Tory supporters are rebelling against David Cameron’s efforts to promote women, according to Anne Perkins in Comment is Free:

The Tory ginger group website, Conservative Home, runs regular popularity polls for the shadow cabinet. This month, Spelman is at the bottom, along with most of the top Tory women. Read the comments, and it seems the weight of opinion is that these are people who have been promoted for their gender and so, as night follows day, not up to the job.

Comments From You

AAAh right. Because the few women who make it into a position of relative power, amongst hundreds of men, must have managed to get there and stay there because the powers that be pitied them because they were poor little women!

I’m surprised they don’t straight out accuse them of getting there on their backs, because hey, women can’t work for their money and position! We have to have been given it because of some quota (which wouldn’t be needed if people didn’t keep picking men for all the jobs in the first place!), and what makse people assume that if there IS a quota, that the women chosen would be less capable? Out of 50% of the population, do these people REALLY think that there are NO WOMEN remotely capable? Probably. Explains a lot!

The irony is, just the opposite is true. Many male politicians manage to stay relatively popular whilst doing a perfectly shambolic job of it. Would a woman, POC or other minority get away with that? Not to mention that, if politics was a fair representative sample of the population, you wouldn’t have nearly so many men, seeing how sognificantly they outnumber women, especially in pigher positions! Hence it can be argued that many male MPs and other politicians have their jobs because they’re men. After all, if they were women, with exactly the same credentials, they’d still be far less likely to get as far, and certainly not in those numbers. The Mail would be in an uproar! ;)

You know the saying: We’ll only have real equality when a woman or minority will be able to do just as shambolic a job as their white, heterosexual male counterparts, and not get it blamed on their race, gender, sexuality. And probably stay on with everyone making excuses for them! Well, I don’t really want more shambolic politicians, but I certainly don’t want women and minorities to be judged by a completely different standard, and be constantly accused of being there because of their minority status. Dude, they’re there because women and minorities exist, and they have every right to be there!

David Cameron only wants to promote women because he se’s them as object that will win him he vote. The sexism of those who are opposing him doing so may in a way serve the greater good. Even if he filled his cabinet with women, it would not do anything to improve the status of women in every day life. This is because women are not just women; they are individuals with political views. A Tory is a Tory; as no gender difference truly exists the gender of a Tory will not stop them from implementing Tory policies. There are many right wing women who believe in the old way of living, these women are in power because they have been put there by right wing men.

I just hope that the public are not fooled by the new Tory election campaign that is about to unfold. They have already promised to make the pay gap one of there priorities (it’s on there web site), no one should be fooled by this.

Gender equality has never been a Tory policy; the Tory party of today are putting on an act. I am starting to think that a lot of today’s backlash is coming from women who can not handle having the same rights and responsibilities as men. I know this must be the case because there are many men out there who cannot cope with the rights and responsibilities they as men have. These men become losers, there female version become losers or backlashers, and spend there life resenting feminists because they blame them for the fact that they are now expected to do something more in life then just find a man to marry. (I am sorry to sound offensive there if I did at all). The women who do follow traditional roles feel small next to modern women who have exceeded them. Do not get me wrong I am not having a go at stay at home moms here. I am having a go at the type of women that resent feminism because they are under an illusion that before feminism every one was happily married. These women seem to think feminism has robbed them of something.

The conservatives have already promised to dish out more marriage fit men! This is where they are going; they will start to say that the current level of poverty and crime in Brittan is the result of the institution of marriage breaking down. There is a danger that people may be taken in by this kind of thing.

There is no reason to think that we are all that different then Americans or anyone else for that matter. Bush managed to capture the vote with is promotion of traditional values (that have the value of tin). Who would have believed that someone would become president of the US and manage to have young people wearing silver rings to show they are chaste in the 21st centaury?

A right wing government can be very dogmatic and is able to fool people with idealistic promises. If a conservative government was to get in now, all the work and progress labour has made will be lost with in one term. If we had another 20 years of labour all the problems that are present today may be resolved. The problem is that we like America never have one party in power for long enough for them to make real progress. We instead change sides when the going gets tough. The problem with that when any social change takes place, things get worse before they get better. A lot of the economy problems we have at present are in a way connected to problems that began in America, rather then labours spending policies.

Labour policies are in my opinion quantitive in there effects (they effect the many) they make a difference to the big picture. Labour dilute there resources by spending on lots of areas at once. This makes it look like things are not getting better, but if left to continue everything all of a sudden improves, it just needs time. The Tory’s on the other hand work by cutting the throats of most public services and chucking money in a select few areas so that all can see a quick improvement in what they have done (or those who have money can see what they have done!). This plays into that tendency to focus on a few done details and gives the illusion of quick results. There details will be law and order, along with robbing Paula to pay Paul. Encouraging people to live in nuclear families saves them money on benefits, and nursery places. Conservativ-ism is not the route forward; it is instead a spiralling road backwards.

The CONservatives never give a thought to the doggedly capitalistic society they are responsible for. Marriages are breaking down and children are “roaming the streets” because we have the longest working hours in Europe (a trend adopted from America, along with rising divorce rates) and because vocational training in this country is rubbish. There is a serious lack of opportunities for young people in every sphere, a legacy of Thatcherism I’m afraid.

Its interesting to note that Cameron et al aren’t offering anything concrete, such as compulsory pay audits, which really would sort out pay discrimmination, its all very wishy washy and easily done away with once they actually get into power.

I’m note suprised by the Tory backlash to this, they aren’t a progressive party in any way at all. Cameron is effecting a Blair lite pose but at heart the party is as backwards as it ever was.

Totally agree with you Anne about true equality. I’d like to see and end to “black tax”, “female tax”, “gay tax”— that is women, POC and minorities have to work twice as hard to get the same level of credit.

Lindsey Spilman do you have any evidence that David Cameron is only promoting women for political purposes and not out of a genuine belief that they are under-represented? Are Conservatives bound to stick by the same policies they have always had? Can’t parties opinions change? Of course they can, Conservative economic thought only came into vogue in the late 1970’s, Labour have largely followed suit and changed their economic policy as well. Clause 4?

And you think 30 years of a labour government would solve our problems? I don’t want to try and just turn this into a political slagging match, but you seem to be a victim of the same scare mongering the Tories tried in ’97 with New Labour Old Danger. Strangly enough none of those fears came true, I doubt vey much many if any of yours will under a Tory government.

(Oh but yes as a final point I agree Consevative Home isn’t exactly a bastion of foward thinking people, they aren’t however the entire party, they are merely part of a broad tend, and happily a part that is for the most part being ignored by the Tory hierarchy)

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